To answer the question above on how this gets decided, here is the rule:

13.4 Board representatives
every team nominates a representative for the NC Board when registering. The board representative will represent the team's decisions and wishes in cases of dispute or rule discussions. The team captain may but must not necessarily be team representative.

So to get a decision here, we would need a thread with a proposal on the rule change, and then the board representatives from last year's teams, place their vote.

Also, proposing person should copy board members in a pm. Note:if board member does not vote, (due to being away or inactivity) then a captain usually votes.

If we do switch nation's Cup to 4 player rounds, then the following rules need considered for a change:

13.2 Team's rank is decided by the sum of ratings of best 6 players as of DATE TO BE DECIDED

13.3 Captains
Captains can be either playing or non-playing. The captain acts as the spokesman/woman of the team in the following way:

- He/she registers the team by posting a reply on the REGISTRATIONAL thread;
- The captain sends the TD a PM WEEKLY with the five-player lineup no later than Wednesday, 11:00 PM (GMT) (the week before the start of the next round). If the TD doesn't receive it in time, she/he will use the lineup of the round before;

It would seem rule 13.2 must become "best 4 players", since some countries would not have 5 players even,
and rule 13.3 must become the "four player line-up"

This change would address small nation factor, but really does nothing to the question of: I played on a Transnational team before, and want to still play with those people this year. In my opinion, that notation is a philosophical one which may be much more difficult to legislate with rules. It goes at heart of what do we want Nation's Cup to be?

Well, if we want to be efficient, first question that has to be ansnwered :

Do we need to change the rules for the NC 2012 before it starts ? :

A. Yes, go back to 4 players/ team starting this.
B. No, changes should only apply to NC 2013.
C. No, NC is good as it is.

Then we would have a couple weeks to discuss an eventual change of rules and form the teams.

Using the board of last year would not allow some countries, part of TNTs, to express themselves individually. But rules are clearly stating that the board should take decisions. And I dont think we have time to ask the board for a change of rules by the board when NC is not launched yet .

What does case A mean exactly?
- are countries with 4 players forced/allowed/not allowed to be a national team?
- if forced or allowed: Is there a rule what they can do, if one of their players is not available in a certain week?
For example the variant I came up with some days ago:V2b) Play only 4 matches per round and give small teams more flexibility
We can't force nations with only 4 players to build a team, as there can well be reasons why somebody cannot play in a certain week or two.
But if we allow teams with only 4 players to play matches ahead of schedule, we could.
Example: One of my players cannot play on the days scheduled for clash#3. I PM the captain of our clash #3 opponent (and TD), telling him, that I have a player who cannot play in week#3, his available times before that are a,b,c. Team of clash#3 picks a player who is available at one of the suggested times, this match takes place earlier and is considered slot#1.

It seems that at the moment there are 4 countries with 4 players, so this is probably very relevant for the decision.

My opinion: This discussion is far too late. My team has picked up 9 players (Hecki, U31, U32, wasdenn, Heizer, MaxiJazz, Beka, Pitze, Uhrfriese) cause we thought we need to make 5 matches each round.
But if we have only 4 games we are far too many players.

I have to ask my teammates first. But i don't want to tell them that they probably won't be nominated.

What does case A mean exactly?
- are countries with 4 players forced/allowed/not allowed to be a national team?
- if forced or allowed: Is there a rule what they can do, if one of their players is not available in a certain week?
For example the variant I came up with some days ago:V2b) Play only 4 matches per round and give small teams more flexibility
We can't force nations with only 4 players to build a team, as there can well be reasons why somebody cannot play in a certain week or two.
But if we allow teams with only 4 players to play matches ahead of schedule, we could.
Example: One of my players cannot play on the days scheduled for clash#3. I PM the captain of our clash #3 opponent (and TD), telling him, that I have a player who cannot play in week#3, his available times before that are a,b,c. Team of clash#3 picks a player who is available at one of the suggested times, this match takes place earlier and is considered slot#1.

It seems that at the moment there are 4 countries with 4 players, so this is probably very relevant for the decision.

That sounds good.
But i thought it'd be good to know everybody's general opinion first, before discussing the precise wording of the rules. All the wordings for eventual new rules were not ready.
In other words, I wanted to check if it is really useful to discuss about it or not.
Hence yes or no.

If yes, I'd open another vote right after this one with different options for new rules. (4 players/4 matches, 4 players/5 matches, 4 players / flexible schedule, how many players in top 500 to form a national team / redefinition of TNT's).

If some of you have good wordings for those eventual rules, please share. If the whole wording could be ready for Saturday, and the outcome of the vote is yes, then I could launch the second vote right away.

Hecki : we'll see what the outcome is, but with 9 players, can't you form 2 teams ? (TIC 1 and TIC 2 ?). If you need 1 or 2 more players to form a second team, is that possible that you discuss with another team (if other germans are friends enough ) ?

difficult for me to decide. Since I'm part of NC, I play 5 players-version. For me it's a big transformation. We have a big team, so we would prefer to play with 5 players. But we want a big tournament.

I only know for sure, that it helps 1 team, team austria. Which other teams would manage to form a nationalteam, if we change this rule? If its just one more team, it doesn't help much, in my opinion.

So, what about the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Suisse, UK, Sweden? Would this change the situation for u? Please answer as clear as possible, to help me to vote right.

difficult for me to decide. Since I'm part of NC, I play 5 players-version. For me it's a big transformation. We have a big team, so we would prefer to play with 5 players. But we want a big tournament.

Like sysy said, the format is not under vote. At the moment we just want to know if the minimum players per team can be reduce from 6 to 4. Its possible to continue with 5 games per round.

Whilst that is 4 players, we would definitely need a fifth, as I cant guarantee playing every week as my work rota is very variable.

So in this case we would need a 5th player, probably kostas (going back to BH roots, well before by TTR time but some may remember British-Hellenic!). I assume that this is more acceptable to the NC crowd than having a TNT composed of several nations???!!!

It still doesnt answer the idea of, as dale put it: I played on a Transnational team before, and want to still play with those people this year.

For my/our team, going down to four basically means I have to choose between Vincent and Kostas for the 5th player ( if we can only have 5)... Kostas played with UK in years before V so that choice is somewhat easier but not a nice one to make at short notice!

Say a nation is enough for a big team only, say 8 players... it really puts the captain in a sh1tty position deciding who qualifies for the team/first team!

I already voted B - yes the rules could/maybe should be looked at but for next year...

--------------------

I created a thread to look at my team's entry... To UKB or not to UKB... I realize this is a very clever and slightly humorous title, but there is a reasonable little debate open for question...

If we are allowed we would like to play as Portugal, having 4 members only, that would mean either 4 clashes per round or one of us playing one extra game. We will make an effort besides knowing that it might be hard in some weeks (if holidays envolved), still i'm sure with the a good and proper arrangment we wont miss any clash.

This would mean that Olof would be out of our team, and as u all may know he has been with us for long still this is a gold oportunity that we would like to really take, and i'm sure Olof will understand that and even seek another team members. Maybe Kostas, GSV.........

I hate to make a decision without knowing what happens. Will we really have more nationalteams? Cant we make a registration for a cup with 4 players and a cup with 5? Then I would see, how many more teams we would get. And we could decide, which cup we wanna have, knowing the facts...

Thx for ur PM, Bean, but I think, most of the teams themselves do not know, if they have enough players for a 4-player-tournament or a 5-player-tournament.

The solution to let players play twice in a clash doesn't make me happy, by the way...

even if we can "only" get plus1 or plus2 nations, that is not sufficient enough to bend the rules a bit?

plus

Qorlas and i quote "I know that in the case of A winning Portugal, Austria, Swiss and UK will field national teams."

Portugal already stated that. Swiss also. I think Austria also. UK already said they have 4 members (even asking for some exception)....

the solution to let players play 2 games is a diff question. i honeslty would prefer not but more than flexible in that subject.
U can only play 4 games for example. U can random pick the user to play 2 games. U can have 4 games, plus a decider for extra 0.5 points in case u dislike ties. thats something to debate after the first really important decision. Are teams with 4 members allowed?

Jepp Miguel, cause I know the NC only with these TNT-Teams. Its not that bad for me. If we only want more nationalteams, why not discussing about 3 players per clash? Where do we stop? But its just my opinion.

Now I read ur last pm. 4 more teams would be important enough for me to change the rules.

4 seems reasonable, and already was an option (that worked fine some users say, i wasnt here to observe)

plus 4 members doesnt mean u get less games, u can have +1 game being played by a repeated player.

again, it seems that every year users say it should be more like a NC, more teams eligible to play, but then there are some many ifs and doubts and isssues, that honestly doesnt seem that bigger NC is really the goal.

But its only my opinion... not even TRUE as rui is the captain. so he gets to vote.

Vote is at the moment only about "do we change things this year : Yes or No?".
Quite simple.

Some people are working in the backdoor to find a solution that would satisfy everybody. Changes should not be seen as a threat, but as a way to preserve what NC is. Even if some rules are prepared, vote will offer some adjustment and I'll try to submit to vote all ideas that showed up in this thread.
So, if you want to see any of your ideas in it, please share them.

Personally, I'm glad this vote is open. It triggered discussions that were needed. Those discussions are fruitful, the community will only benefit from them.

About Will and UKB :

1) You were whining about the calendar, that the list of players was not released on time. I hope you saw that I made an extra effort to have it released soon enough after your complaint, even if I found myself to be super busy at that time. Calendar that you then didnt respect by opening registration yourself... You just want to do things your way.

2) The original issue is not UKB. Stop considering yourself as a target. A change of rules will also concern TRUE and all other national teams that might need to change their plans, including mine. It is not an anti-UKB Vendetta. UKB happened to be in the spotlight because you registered 3 weeks before the normal date.
My concerns appeared only when tons of small teams might disappear from NC, not when UKB signed up.

3) I backed you to form a TNT last year, because community needed more teams and some fresh blood, because we needed a fresh start. A good part of the community was glad to see you guys performed that well, and enjoyed the fun to play against you. Since then, you 've wanted to see UKB as a team in every tourney, you've complained about every tourney organized because you want your own rules. You therefore lost tons of the credit you gained after the NC.

So please stop making it personal. Emotional posts have never led to anything, we know it too much. Be responsible and cheer up. You who is so proud to be English. Like ommie said in the other post, Stephan and Annabel have always shown up late. Just be patient, you still have 3 weeks to register anyway.

I think we are headed towards 4-player teams but still to be confirmed by a vote.

Options can still differ concerning the lineup : 4 players / 4 matches, 4 players 5 Matches. Or simply keep 5 players / 5 matches but considering the previous vote, it'd not make sense any more.
My preference would still go to 4 player/4 matches.
If a player would play twice, certain teams would be tempted to be consisted of only 4 members on purpose.

However, we need to contemplate some other changes.

Seeding

With 4 players, the sum of 6 best ratings wouldnt work anymore.

Should seeding be done considering the average of all members of a team ? Sum of ratings of best 4 players ?

I think the average of all the members would reflect the true strength of a team.

Schedule flexibility
If we agree to include 4 player-teams in NC, we need to make sure they are able to play every clash. Flexibility would compensate then harder rules for TNT's.

Dea's "Safe Exit" is a good option.

rewording Dea

"Once the schedule of Round Robin is released :
If one 4 player-team knows in advance that one of their players is not able to play in the time of a certain clash, they can ask to have that particular match played before the due time.

That means :

Player A of a 4-player team can't play round #4 because he's in holidays. Captain of player A contacts Captain of Player as soon as possible and can schedule the match anytime betweeen RR's schedule release date and before end of Round #4 date.

Discussing this proposal :

Should only 4 player teams be allowed to do that ?

What's the procedure ? Both captains sends a name to The TD ?

I was thinking that the captain of team A should release the name of player A to captain of team B. And captain of team B decides of opponent of player B. Then players or captains informs the TD of the date of their matches, ahead of schedule.

A) Low maintenance for the TD.
B) Team A would "suffer" a slight handicap.
C) But Dea told me that nobody from TuS wanted to play her ahead of schedule last year, because her name was released. And it caused some trouble for Kasi in its organization.

Any ideas about that ? Any wording that would include all those ideas in order to be submitted to the vote ?

Tie breaker

We will have to think of a tie breaker in KO Round if 4 player/4matches happens to be the new standard.

We will have to think of a tie breaker in KO Round if 4 player/4matches happens to be the new standard.

In the first year, 2005, when all matches were 4 player, here is situation which occurred with Final match:

In the semifinals Red TGV chose German Chicken Train, and handed them their first loss, (3-1) while Austria defeated World United, (3-1) leading to a finals clash of Austria and Red TGV. In the finals the matches were split, 2-2, with Angel6 defeating Kotay and staycool beating the French Captain Elric - Sancerre, while toutoune and xavtrax - Saint Amour were victorious over Wernerus and sauvignon57. The difference was in the tiebreaker, with Red TGV holding a 15-11 edge in games won, and being crowned the Nation's Cup Champions.

My point is, I think tie-breaker is already written into the rules.Rule 13.7 unless it needs amended to include knock-out round since it refers to round robin.

Perhaps we need to go to wording of rules in Champions League.12a.8 In case of a tie (score 2-2)
a. Tiebreakers are: matches won, then games won.
b. In case there is still a tie, Each captain nominates 1 player (per skype to TD). They play one game. The winner of that game determines the winner. (I edited to one game, but rule here goes with more players until a team is up 2 games. Afraid though, that may prolong finish way too long.)

I don't like Games won as a tie breaker. In the RR, maybe there isn't a good alternative (head to head match up would be better but could be problematic if you get a situation where A beat B and B beat C and C beat A, etc.)

In the KO rounds, I would prefer some kind of additional match, additional games, or something.

4 players/4 matches is better than 4 players/5 matches.

Top 4 player's elo for initial ranking is better than the whole team.

Would be too chaotic to set up all the matchups at the beginning of NC (like in league), and people play when they can, but maybe something similar and a little more structured could be done for the RR.

If we are playing 4 vs 4 why all the matches need to have a winner?
We can play 8 (or 6) games per match, I see two inprovements doing this:
a) Avoid the random start in the last games, all the players will start the same number of games
b) The tie in the clash will be less likely being a 2'5 - 1'5 possible.

Seeding: For me average of all team members is not a good seeding, this harms the teams that are trying to enroll new members in order the start to feel what the nc is, against the ones with just 4 good known players.

Matches per clash: I'll go for matches of 5 players between 5 players teams, and matches of 4 players when one of the teams only has 4 players. In this way:
a) Teams wiht 4 players can play the NC
b) Teams wiht 9 players can give more chances to this members to play
c) Yes, as the games wons is a tie-breaker there is a (very small) penalty for not having the 5th player.

I think we have to discuss the issue of playing all games (= not bo5(6)7 but always 5(6)7 games, match doesn't end at 3:0) again in the new light.

If you play all games, then games won are a valid tiebreaker, and the cases where we need yet another tiebraker will be rare.
In case that really happens I would recommend the tiebreaker rule used in CL (each team brings at least 4 players, they play single games until a team leads by 2).

Of course if we like the CL rule very much (in CL everyone was fond of it, but it never happened till now), we can also go for:
Matches won -> if tie then CL rule for the knockouts.

If games won becomes a major tiebreaker : we do need to play all the games of match. The rule already exists like onyx mentioned.

I like the idea of 6 games better.

For the KO round, losing because of the games won tiebreaker is not good. You lose with a 2-2... It tastes bitter to me.
The CL tiebreaker, of one more game random is then better.
It would add strategy to schedule the match, add pressure and spice which is always good !

In the French Forum, RFAD really likes the rules of 2005. He thinks that player all the games of a match is always good for a player's experience. He'd rather lose 5-0 to a good opponent, than 3-0 because he'd have the chance to play 2 more games against a top player.

This mainly helps to sum up all ideas that may submitted to a vote for everybody (and for me) :

1. Team lineup

4 matches/4 players, 4 matches/5 players, 5 players, 4 player when playing a 4 player team - 5 player when playing a 5 player team.

2. Seeding

Sum of best 4 players / Average of the whole team

3. Safe exit
Yes as it is / Yes, without the intervention of the TD / No.

4. Time allowed for a clash

Keep the rule as it is (more or less 10 days) / Offer 2 week clash with a clash starting every week (Overlaps would not help captains to know the final result of the previous clash to decide on their next lineup).

We had fixed start times for the 5 slots. First slot played Friday evening, 2. and 3. slot on Saturday and 4. and 5. on Sunday. Knowing that, the schedule was done with the line-ups, and I think it was really good for the spectators. To avoid the scheduling-difficulties of the last years final, I would suggest to fix that in the rules. As ever, the Caps should be allowed to modify this, if one of the players isn't able to play at the defined start times.

Well all those discussions are really fruitful, everybody seems involved and I like that .

I'll probably open the vote Saturday morning CET. And let it open for 5/6 days to let everybody think of those major changes. The discussion would only delay the start of NC for one week, which is really not bad.

Current rule :
13.3 The captain sends the TD a PM WEEKLY with the five-player lineup no later than Wednesday, 11:00 PM (GMT)

A. The captain sends the TD a PM WEEKLY with the 4-player lineup no later than Wednesday, 11:00 PM (GMT)

B. The captain sends the TD a pm WEEKLY with the 5-player lineup no later than Wednesday, 11:00 PM. A 4-player team is allowed to have one of their player twice in a lineup. No player can be part of a lineup in 2 slots a 2nd time before all team members have been in lineup twice once.

C. We keep the rule as it is.

We will have a Portuguese team this year with 4 (competitive) members, but I'm trying to get more, searching for new players. After a lot of PMs i found one
Profile: old player (since 2004!!!!), around 1500, never played tournaments, almost every games with players under is score. After i told him what Nation Cup is, he wants to try.

So i get 3 scenarios:

1. 4player/per team - 4player/per round
2. 5player/per team - 4player/per round (allow new member to play 1 or 2 rounds)
3. 5player/per team - 5player/per round (new member need to play all rounds)

Im afraid this 3rd scenario will fright some new players to jump in (hey, you have to play 6 or 7 games per week on the next 2 months).

By the way: I would really like to see the UK players searching for more UK players. Please don't think that this is great sportsmanship: being lazy, not searching and hoping you get a TNT then. I hope this will not work.

If Safe Exit is allowed only for 4-player teams (or in exceptional cases where you can convince the TD that really none of your players in available in a certain week) ...

Why should a team with 4 good players give a 5th player a chance to join the team?
Scenario: You find a 5th player who wants to join (assuming you even look for one). You don't know him. Maybe it turns out he doesn't really want to play. Maybe you turn out to not like him at all for whatever reason. Maybe you find something suspicious. Maybe he's just playing baaaaaaaaaaad. But - bad luck - you've lost your right to "safe exit" and are forced to put him in the lineup when one of the other players is on holiday.
You're probably better off to stay with the 4 players you know ... Safe Exit is there, so no worries ...

Seen from the other perspective:
Why does a "big team" not have the right to have his best player play all the matches (assuming every player has times where he is not available) whereas a "small team" does?

And now we get to the "grey zone":
For clash "X" one of your players is only available at one single evening. Shall you
a) wait for the lineup, then tell your opp that this is the only time you can offer?
b) tell the opp captain in advance, and suggest to maybe play the match ahead of time?

I can see Sysy's point that we don't want a widespread use, thus killing the "weekly". What about some other limitations? Eg Max. once per round? Max. 1 week in advance? Max X times in RR?

Well, then if Safe Exit is allowed once or more per round, there is also no reason for a 4-player team to hire a 5th player either.
With the rules anyway, if a team is full, player who overhangs can be part of a TNT. So, if you have an extra player that overhangs and wants to play NC, he can wait the TNT registration.

Also, if we want to allow Safe Exit to all teams then why not ! But it should still remain the exception and then should maybe be allowed only a very limited number of times. (once, twice, more ?).

Don't know yet what's the balance between the team needs and the competition spirit !

The more I think about it, the more I think it should be under TD's responsibility to allow a team to use safe exit or not. Maybe he can post in his thread what his feeling is about it.
If Safe Exit is ok in the Round Robin, it obviously can not be in KO due to schedule issues.

6 games / match

Onyx asked about game ties. I think a tie should count now in the final result, and both players should receive 0.5.

Why ? Matches would be too long otherwise and each player has the same number of starts. + More chances to break a 3-3 tie. If people think it is ok, i can add it to the rule without using a vote.

The more I think about it, the more I think it should be under TD's responsibility to allow a team to use safe exit or not. Maybe he can post in his thread what his feeling is about it.
If Safe Exit is ok in the Round Robin, it obviously can not be in KO due to schedule issues.

I agree: we can leave it to TD decision.. We just need to make it a possibility and then TD will decide when to apply it.

Sysyphus wrote

6 games / match

Onyx asked about game ties. I think a tie should count now in the final result, and both players should receive 0.5.

Why ? Matches would be too long otherwise and each player has the same number of starts. + More chances to break a 3-3 tie. If people think it is ok, i can add it to the rule without using a vote.

Ok for ties. To play 6 games means that we don't need no more difficult starting rules. Just first random and then alternate.
So play 6 games and then see the result.